At The Richard Dawkins Foundation For Reason and Science you can find a witty and urbane video of TV host and comedian Bill Maher. In the video Maher is primarily arguing that “atheism is not a religion.” Maher contrasts the difference between atheism and religion like this:
When it comes to religion, we’re not two sides of the same coin, and you don’t get to put your unreason upon the same shelf as my reason. Your stuff [religion] has to go over there, on the shelf with Zeus, and Thor, and the crackin’. With the stuff that is not evidence based, stuff that religious people never change their mind about, no matter what happens.
What keeps atheism from being a religion? Because atheism is based on reason, but religion is based on faith and lacks evidence.
There are a number of interesting ways to respond. First, we should recollect that during the French Revolution, they literally turned churches into Temples of Reason. At Notre-Dame cathedral they even held a special ritual for “The Feast of Reason.” It seems that humans have a profound desire to create religion – sometimes even in the name of reason itself!
Second, Maher omits the reality that many Christians believe in their religion on the basis of arguments, evidence and reason. Christianity is a knowledge tradition. It makes testable claims for every field of learning, from history (e.g., the bodily resurrection of Jesus) to science (e.g., predicting a beginning to the universe) to human identity (e.g., we are spiritual beings who can make free choices, engage in loving relationships, and find purpose in life). There is also a long-standing history of Christians providing evidence and arguments that directly establish the reasonableness of their core beliefs (see here and here).
Another key part of Maher’s argument – a staple idea in contemporary atheism – is to lump all religions together as if they are basically the same. Historic, orthodox Christianity is said to be identical to Norse mythology, Roman mythology, Aztec mythology, and so on. Why? Because all of these belief systems are just different ways of being irrational.
If it is fair to lump all religions together because they are different ways of being irrational, then it is equally reasonable to lump together all opposition to religion as well. For instance, Stalin promoted atheism in a variety of ways and waged “a terror campaign against religious believers.” Maher is more of a TV personality than a government leader, but that minor difference aside, they are both strongly opposed to religion as a bad thing. So if Jesus and Zeus belong on the same shelf, why not Maher and Stalin?
Well, because obviously that comparison is terribly unfair to Bill Maher, who in spite of his opposition to religion, surely doesn’t believe in rounding up religious leaders and sending them to concentration camps. In the same way, though Christianity and Norse mythology are both religions, Christians have done extensive work to demonstrate that their beliefs are historical, testable and reasonable.
The final thing to examine is Maher’s claim to love reason. As he says, “I’m open to anything for which there’s evidence. Show me a God and I will believe in him.” At first glance, that does sound reasonable. But what does he mean? Well, Maher claims that in order to believe, he’d need Jesus to show up at the Super Bowl and turn the nachos into loaves and fishes.
To see why this doesn’t work, consider it from another point of view. I’m also open to anything for which there’s evidence. Let’s say I pledge to become an atheist only if archaeologists can find what remains of Jesus’ dead body. Maher’s formula looks like this: say you love reason, provide impossible-to-meet criteria for changing your mind, then claim that those who disagree are, by definition, unreasonable. That kind of argument wouldn’t fly if a theist gave it, so it shouldn’t work when an atheist tries it. Reason requires us to adopt more uniform standards for which beliefs can be legitimated as knowledge.
Here’s the other thing: Jesus has outdone Maher’s wildest dreams. After three days of bodily decomposition and intestinal rotting, he came back to life and publicly appeared to dozens of individuals and groups over a period of forty days. (According to some sources, he also multiplied fish and loaves at a large gathering). Did it happen? Well, that’s a matter of debate (see here and here). The important point is that Christians stake the very center of their belief system on a historical claim which can be reasonably investigated and discussed.
Maher is a funny guy. But by the same token, it probably isn’t wise to take his atheism too seriously.
A link to give attribution for the photo of Bill Maher.
This post was originally published at Reasons for God.
Atheism is *definitely* a belief. Is it also a religion, that’s a fun question … Lovely article here on this whole topic by one of the RZIM team: “The Scandinavian Skeptic (Why Atheism Is A Belief)” — http://bit.ly/is_atheism_a_belief
I’m not entirely convinced by this post. Atheists aren’t driven by belief that there isn’t a God but skepticism about His existence. There’s a subtle difference.
Just to be cheeky, atheism is as much a religion as celibacy is a sexual position.
I think Maher’s point is to consider what justifies beliefs. And what justifies religious belief is not reason but faith. In this sense, atheism meaning non belief is justified by compelling reasons. Religious belief – no matter what the object of faith may be, like Thor, Zeus, Krackens, and so on – are the same in this regard, relying not on equivalently compelling reasons as atheism but in spite of them. That’s why they require faith. Atheism does not require any kind of equivalent faith but a healthy dose of skepticism for claims about this world that are not backed up by compelling evidence from this world.
The accuracy of these statement can be demonstrated by looking at the distribution of religious belief. The strongest predictor of religious faith is not its truth claims based on compelling reasons but the geography of the believer’s birthplace.And a compelling explanation for this distribution is the influence of factors that have no correlation to evidence from the world, such as the religious belief of parents and neighbours and friends, the state sanctioned religion, the scope of the indoctrination of children. These factors successfully predict which religious belief will be most widely held. Along with these factors, another powerful influence is the level of intolerance and hostility towards religious skepticism and apostasy.
So when Maher talks about reason having little influence in religious belief, he is factually correct. To test this for yourself, what compelling evidence from reality would change your mind? If Jesus’ body were to be presented to you, I deeply suspect you would deny it regardless of any scientific evidence presented because your faith is honestly stronger – and necessarily so – than your willingness to respect what reality has to say about the truth quality of your faith. As soon as you begin to allow reality to influence your faith claims, you are on a steep and slippery slope to rejecting faith as a means to imposing what’s true on reality regardless of what contrary evidence may tell you. Whereas faith is a vice in any other area of human inquiry, it is granted a special exemption as a virtue in matters religious because it is required for the faith to have any validity at all. That’s a clue…
Reading this response it repeatedly struck me that you often argue that the Christian has only blind faith, and you make these arguments on a website that is devoted to reasonable faith. This strikes me as being quite odd, considering that the very site you make these assertions on has many articles devoted to reason and evidence for Christianity and no articles whatsoever promoting faith without reason or evidence.
Your referencing of other gods seems to be committing the fallacy of
composition, where one says that because one or more things is true (or false) within a group therefore all things are true (or false) within that group, instead of looking at the evidence of each individual case. It’s rather like a doctor saying that because all previous cases he’s encountered of someone having a headache was the flu, therefore all future cases of someone experiencing a headache will be the flu. We have to take each individual case on its own evidence.
Your suggestion of how various religious belief originates commits also commits the genetic fallacy, where one says that because they’ve shown how a belief originated, therefore they show the belief to be false. Again, we have to look at the claims of the belief itself. What we’re dealing with here is actually three subjects: 1) The origination of the belief 2) The belief itself 3) The object of the belief.
Now one may show the origination of the belief to be based on weak data, but that still does not disprove the object of the belief. It is not in any way a valid or reasonable argument against the object of the belief. And if you have committed a logical fallacy in your argument against the object of the belief, you have not devalued the belief itself.
Let me illustrate how the genetic fallacy works:
My mother taught me to believe in the Christian God, therefore my belief is false.
My mother taught me that flowers need water to grow, therefore that belief is false.
Now of course we all know that flowers need water to grow. The fact that I know that by way of my mother and not through a course in plant biology does not change the fact that flowers need water to grow. It does not make it false.
The same thing goes for Christian faith. Any claim otherwise is simply special pleading.
So arguing that you’ve shown a belief to be false simply because you’ve shown how the belief originated is simply false. The data you provide is in no way an argument against the existence of the Christian God.
You also speak of “compelling reasons” for atheism and “contrary evidence” against Christianity. What are these compelling reasons? Surely they cannot be the logical fallacies or claims of blind faith you
mention? What “contrary evidence” do you have that you assert refutes Christianity? Again, surely it’s not the arguments that commit logical fallacies that you referenced?
What need of there is faith of the religious kind if compelling evidence from the world about the world is available to explain it? Are you suggesting that you don’t need faith of the religious kind?
Once you cross the Rubicon and accept faith to be a legitimate and justified methodology to inform claims of supernatural causal efficacy, you’ve crossed the reason boundary that requires compelling reasons based on good evidence from this world. That, and not any fallacies you think I’m making, is the identical methodology used for all religious claims that may or may not be in conflict and incompatible with your own. By accepting the role of faith to justify your claims, you eliminate any means possible for an independent review of evidence. You make your religious belief dependent on your faith in it.
Sure, like any religious person who seeks to argue that their religious faith is justified beyond one’s faith in it, you will select whatever bits and pieces and flotsam and jetsam seem to back you up. So, too, does the believer who holds an incompatible and hostile religious belief from your own. Who, if either of you, is right and, more importantly, how can we tell?
Well, a good methodology that allows reality rather than the believer to justify claims made about it goes a very long way in solving this problem. The difficulty here for the believer, however, is that it negates faith to play an important role and introduces likelihood and probability that in all other areas of life is fatal to superstitious beliefs. And this is where contrary data enters the discussion. For example, the efficacy of prayer directed to Jesus could produce statistically significant results… but they don’t. The reanimation of dead cells of very pious believers versus, say, agnostics, could at least show correlational efficacy… but this doesn’t happen. Claims of Exodus could produce predictive anthropological evidence… but it doesn’t. Claims of a founding couple could be found by population genetics… but it doesn’t. Global geology could produce compelling evidence of a global flood… but it doesn’t. And so on. When we allow reality rather than faith to adjudicate claims of supernatural causation, we seem to never find what people of faith insist we should find; instead, the apologists earn their keep and step forward to ply their trade explaining why reality comports with faith only when we change the meaning of words to what they should mean, cherry pick our data for what it should support, and then squint just so at wobbling between metaphor and literal whenever and wherever it comports to do so. In any other area of inquiry, such a methodology would be unacceptable, but in religious belief it is necessary to try to give the appearance that reality comports to faith. To be clear, the direction is for reality to support faith and not the other way around. The various conclusions drawn from such a methodology, however, do not allow reality to arbitrate them. But believers do allow reality to play a supportive role if only if it seems to comport. The core that justifies faith is not available in reality for people to come to these themselves; they must come to faith by the efforts of others to convince them. Nowhere in reality do we find compelling evidence independent of believers to think it is reasonable that a specific interactive divine agency operates to cause effect. This is mitigated by the believer to elevate faith and not reality to be the source of justification and then use the very weakest form of evidence – first, second, and third hand testimonials, revelation, scriptural authority – to support it. And this is no different between islam and christianity as it is between scientology and hellenism. The only difference is one of particulars; the method is identical and it has nothing to do with good reasons based on compelling evidence from reality.
But a mother in sub-saharan Africa or Persia or Canada or ancient Greece will teach that flowers need water to grow and this teaching will be factually consistent…however (at least some of) these mothers will teach about god(s) that will not be factually consistent…you are making a category error in your analogy
All humans have two legs. So do all chickens. Are chickens humans?
Religions have regular weekly meetings. My sales team has regular weekly meetings. Is my sales team a religion?
what is happening with your common sense?
Nothing, last time I checked.
Just as, last time I checked, A and B sharing one or two incidental features does not make A a kind of B.
You are absolutely correct. So are you defending Bill Maher’s argument that Christ is like Zeus? or that Maher is like Stalin? or are you able to see the bad logic in both?.